One of the biggest names in medical research has joined Apple and will likely provide a huge boost to the company’s medical efforts.

Stephen Friend, co-founder and former president of Sage Bionetworks, accepted a job at Apple recently, and although the two sides are keeping quiet on what exactly Friend will be doing, he’ll likely be one of the leaders of the company’s growing digital health team.

iMuscle's anatomical models look a bit leaner than I had in mind. Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

I saw my six pack for the first time at the age of 40. Prior to that, my abs had been hidden behind a thick layer of fat that I’d built up over years of living a sedentary geek lifestyle. The only exercise I got was racing to be first in line at the Apple Store for a product launch.

Then one day, a doctor told me I had cancer and my whole world changed. There’s nothing like a brush with death to make you take your health more seriously. Suddenly, I wanted to get fit, but true to my geek heritage, I would do it using my iPhone. Abs? There must be an app for that.

You still need to see a doctor to detect cancer. Photo: Christiana Care/Flickr

Want to know if that nasty mole on your shoulder is cancerous? There’s an app for that!

Errr… Actually, no. No, there’s not.

The Federal Trade Commission announced today that apps like Mole Detective and Mel App that are marketed as ways for iPhone users to snap pictures of moles to determine if they’re cancerous aren’t based on actual real-world science.

The two app makers reached a settlement with the FTC after the feds alleged that the apps lacked adequate evidence to support claims that they could calculate your mole’s melanoma risk as low, medium, or high without ever visiting a doctors office.

In the quiet foothills of Kentucky, a massive supercomputer is churning through data. It is hunting for new drugs to fight cancer.

Every week, the DataseamGrid processes 300 man-years worth of calculations. Yeah, that’s 300 years of calculations every week. Drug discovery usually takes 10 to 15 years, but the DataseamGrid blazes through that work in a fraction of the usual time. It is one of the largest pipelines of potential new cancer drugs in the country. Researchers here are about to start human trials this year of a new drug discovered by the supercomputer, which, if successful, may lead to an entirely new class of cancer drugs.

Filippo Bigarella is a prolific and respected developer in the jailbreak community. The Italian teenager has released no less than 20 jailbreak tweaks and hacks in Cydia, the jailbreak alternative to the App Store. His work (e.g., Springtomize) has appeared numerous times on sites such as this one. To put it simply, he makes some of the best jailbreak tweaks there are. He’s also a full-time student.

Bigarella has released yet another jailbreak tweak that animates the iPhone’s app icons. The tweak itself is pretty simple, but the reason behind its release is special: funding pediatric cancer research.